Chelsea Smile
by andromedacblack
Summary: Let him start the flames, the same way she'd let him make her world burn. Harley x Joker Nolanverse


Harleen Quinzel stood in front of her bathroom mirror, glaring at her reflection

Harleen Quinzel stood in front of her bathroom mirror, glaring at her reflection. Her blonde hair was becoming greasy from lack of washing, purple bags were forming under her eyes, and her lip was raw from the amount of nervous chewing she'd been doing lately. She couldn't be bothered to fix her mascara; there was so much more _wrong_ with her face than smudged makeup. She was _frowning_, and she didn't like that. Harleen Quinzel was a striking young psychiatrist, acclaimed gymnast, a beautiful woman -- yet all she saw was an unhappy _mess_.

She knew why. She knew why she had been nervous and flighty lately, why that angry look had seeped into her eyes. Her patient -- the patient whom she had _begged_ for, _begged_ to be his psychiatrist. After all, who could be more interesting than the Joker?

All she'd planned was to learn his stories, his secrets, for a book that would make her famous. But -- she didn't care about that anymore. She knew that though she had set out to manipulate him as his psychiatrist, she'd ended up being the one dragged along as a puppet. She didn't fault him for this, though; she _couldn't_. She almost _enjoyed_ it.

How unprofessional of her. But how _wonderful_.

Except -- Harleen knew she was a pawn. And, woman of high ambitions as she was, she wanted _more_ than that. She could help him -- break him out of Arkham, help him douse the universe in gasoline and light everything on fire.

Let him start the flames, the same way she'd let him make her world _burn_.

But there was something _wrong_, something wrong with frowning once she'd realized the sick, pointless joke behind the world. Because the world _was_ a joke -- busy little ants aspiring towards nothing, only to die in the end without realizing what was _important_. The Joker had shown her that -- and she loved him for it.

The first session with him, he had grinned at her and asked her why she wasn't smiling. Perplexed, she had responded that she _was_ -- only for him to laugh and say, "Not in your _eyes_, Harls."

_Let's put a smile on that face._

Harleen felt something inside her snap and she threw open the medicine cabinet. She dug a blade out of her razor, pricking her fingers in the process. She opened her mouth wide -- _smile for the camera, Harls_ -- and placed the razor in the corner of her mouth. She had to saw to start the first cut, but the rest was pretty straightforward -- she felt her flesh start to bunch up, so she opened wider, straining her jaw. The blade slid through to the end, and she ripped it out, feeling herself start to scream. It hurt, it hurt, dear god it hurt -- and she _liked it_.

A smirk was not good enough, no no no. She opened her mouth again, wide wide wide, beginning the other cheek's transformation. She tried to ignore the way the two sides of the other cheek flapped against each other, feeling so strange when they rubbed together. She hacked at the other cheek, and once done, dropped the bloody razor to the floor, following it downwards.

She could feel the blood dripping down her cheeks, pooling on the floor. _Sutures_. She knew she had some medical sutures around her apartment, just in case -- she never did like hospitals. She found them in the hall closet, on the top shelf, wrapped up with a curved medical needle and a pair of scissors. She threaded the needle and stitched up her face -- _a simple interrupted stitch_, she remembered from her father's old medical textbooks. They were blue, blue marks against red blood and pink flesh.

Better, Harleen admitted, looking in the mirror -- but not _good enough_, still a _facade_.

She had white greasepaint from the previous Halloween -- she'd been a _jester_. She donned the old outfit on a whim, then returned to the bathroom mirror, delicately layering her face with white. Next came mascara and eyeliner, then dark, dark red lipstick. She carefully applied the lipstick to the edges of her new smile, precision to fix the mess, though the Joker was anything but _precise_.

Harley Quinn looked in the mirror, admiring her handiwork. Oh, now didn't that look nice? A harlequin jester where a silly little _girl_ had once stood.

She couldn't break the Joker out of Arkham -- no, not yet, there was still the _competition_. The man that the Joker couldn't seem to ignore, the man the Joker obsessed over -- the _Bat_man. Oh, yes, he was competition, a _diversion_, and Harley Quinn wouldn't let anyone get between her and her man -- not even the _Batman_. A woman _scorned_ and all that.

Harley Quinn smiled. Life had _begun_, and oh, she would wrap things up nice and tidy for the Joker's return. She would be the Chelsea smile to his Glasgow grin, and oh, how everything would _burn_.


End file.
